I'm looking at picking up a shield for those times I need a bit of extra defense, and I've run into two problems. The first is that I have no idea what the advantage of one shield is over another and the information the shops give you when you ask isn't helpful. The second is that a small buckler weighs as much as a tower shield. According to the shop, it looks like the only difference between shields is the cost.

You ask a blacksmith's apprentice for the details on a copper-bossed round buckler.

A small round shield with a metal boss.

You see nothing particularly unusual about the copper-bossed round buckler.It is a medium-sized item, mainly made of wood.It can be worn over one shoulder.It appears to be in good repair.It appears to be of average quality.It can be used to block incoming attacks and occasionally bash your foes, its effectives dependent on your Shield Use skill.It weighs 5.0 pounds.

Cost: 70 riln.If you want to buy it now, type order confirm.

You ask a blacksmith's apprentice for the details on a copper-banded wooden round shield.

A round wooden shield, useful for blocking incoming attacks.

You see nothing particularly unusual about the copper-banded wooden round shield.It is a large item, mainly made of wood.It can be worn over one shoulder.It appears to be in good repair.It appears to be of average quality.It can be used to block incoming attacks and occasionally bash your foes, its effectives dependent on your Shield Use skill.It weighs 5.0 pounds.

Cost: 100 riln.If you want to buy it now, type order confirm.

You ask a blacksmith's apprentice for the details on a copper-bossed kite shield.

A large, long, flat-topped shield that tapers toward the bottom.

You see nothing particularly unusual about the copper-bossed kite shield.It is a huge item, mainly made of wood.It can be worn over one shoulder.It appears to be in good repair.It appears to be of average quality.It can be used to block incoming attacks and occasionally bash your foes, its effectives dependent on your Shield Use skill.It weighs 5.0 pounds.

Cost: 150 riln.If you want to buy it now, type order confirm.

You ask a blacksmith's apprentice for the details on a copper-banded tower shield.

A large, rectangular shield of such size that the wielder can manage to hide completely behind it.

You see nothing particularly unusual about the copper-banded tower shield.It is a huge item, mainly made of wood.It can be worn over one shoulder.It appears to be in good repair.It appears to be of average quality.It can be used to block incoming attacks and occasionally bash your foes, its effectives dependent on your Shield Use skill.It weighs 5.0 pounds.

Cost: 200 riln.

You overhear the following rumor:"I saw one of those Shadgard folk come barging into Grif's and shoot one of the patrons on the spot. Shadgard must be a pretty rough place with such outlaws running rampant."

There has been some discussion among the staff to add a better variety to our shields and we do have this on our to-do list. Currently, there are some minor differences but as a player they may be difficult to discern. The only major difference I can tell you of is that bucklers do better when paired with lighter weapons that work well with two weapon combat.

Shield weights are being tweaked now (bwa ha haaaa). For what it's worth, that was on my to-do list! (For years.)

Here are some basic shield differences currently:

- Buckler: +5 flat block bonus. Most likely to bash with - essentially a weak off-hand weapon that can also be used to block. Works especially well in combination with lighter onehanded weapons since you can still get another strike with the weapon after a buckler bash, if it's a multi-striking weapon. - Round Shield: +25 flat block bonus. Decently likely to bash with. - Kite Shield: +50 flat block bonus. Somewhat likely bash with. - Tower Shield: +100 flat block bonus. Least likely to bash with.

Seeing how I prefer percentage bonuses over flat bonuses (which become negligible as skills get higher), the bonuses will likely be adjusted with percentages soon (now that this has been brought to the fore of my mind!). Here's some of my plans for how to further tweak the differing shield sizes.

Buckler: Make it lighter. Give a small percentage penalty to blocking. They're really quite small. You can still block with it, so it's still very handy to have against ranged attacks, and as noted above, it's essentially a weaker off-hand weapon you can use and still get multiple strikes with a main hand one-handed weapon. Light-onehand-weapon-with-buckler combat is super cool!

Round Shield: The "regular" shield of the bunch. No bonus, no penalty.

Kite Shield: Give a percentage bonus to blocking, with a penalty to dodge and offensive accuracy. These things are big and unwieldly. Quite heavy, causing encumbrance trouble.

Tower Shield: Super heavy, so causes encumbrance trouble. Give an extra "outright block" chance in defensive tactics before standard combat rolls come into play - essentially the wielder completely hiding behind their ridiculously huge shield. Give a huge percentage bonus to blocking, with huge penalties to dodge and offensive accuracy, and a chance to fumble outgoing melee attacks because seriously, you're holding this ridiculously huge slab of wood that can cover your entire body - it's gonna throw you off, it's gonna be hard to move it around quickly, it's gonna screw up your offense. These things will likely mostly be used in more emergency-like situations like running through a particularly dangerous area, or kept worn on the back until you want to specifically focus on defense at the expense of your offense. If a battle starts going south, pull out the huge slab of wood to place between you and your foe so you can survive long enough to escape or pull some other stunt. And, of course, they're useful if you're primarily on guard duty. Templar using these while guarding people and with the Preemptive Guardian ability would be super awesome.

Also at the larp we don't allow people shields where any dimension is longer then one of their arms because otherwise it causes something we call turtling. I am sure you can figure out what it means. Some historical tower shields even had basically an extra leg to keep it stable on the ground like a tripod. Cool stuff but you basically couldn't attack at all with it. I love the changes.

When I was still actively playing, I found a buckler + spear to be a really good combination.

“There is always a choice." "You mean I could choose certain death?" "A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”